By Kevin McCauley
Tribune Co., which emerged from Chapter 11 at end of 2012, has hired Evercore Partners and JPMorgan Chase, to gauge offers to buy its newspaper group including the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune.
The Chicago-based media company installed TV executive Peter Liguori, former entertainment chairman of News Corp’s Fox Broadcasting unit and COO of Discovery Communications, at its helm last month.
Tribune Co. is owned by its senior creditors, a group that includes JPMorgan, Oaktree Capital Management and Angelo, Gordon & Co.
Its other newspapers big papers are the Hartford Courant, Baltimore Sun and Orlando Sentinel.
Liguori told the Chicago Tribune that there won’t be a “fire sale” of the newspaper properties and said the investments bankers will separate offers from potential buyers.
The Tribune owns 23 TV stations, as well as the national cable WGN America system and WGN Radio.
NYT VET SAULNY JOINS ABC NEWS
Susan Saulny, a 12-year veteran of the New York Times, is joining ABC News this month as a Washington correspondent.
ABC News president Ben Sherwood penned a memo to staffers that called the New Orleans native a “superb reporter and writer.”
Saulny covered national news at the NYT and contributed to its digital video efforts. She worked the World Trade Center attack and wrote profiles of victims in the paper’s acclaimed “Portraits of Grief” series.
Saulny was part of the NYT team that won a Pulitzer for “A Nation Challenged” special section in the aftermath of 9/11.
She also worked at the Times’ Chicago bureau, where she covered the impeachment of Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
BUFFETT BUYS TULSA WORLD
Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway is buying Tulsa World, which has been owned by the Lorton family for more than 100 years.
Robert Lorton, CEO of World Publishing Co., will exit the publisher slot when the sale of TW is completed next month. He will be replaced by John Bair, who was president and COO.
TW has a daily circulation of 95K and a Sunday circ of 133K. It will be the third biggest daily in the 28-member BH Media Group., which is led by the Omaha World-Herald and Richmond Times-Dispatch. BHMG also runs 42 weekly papers.
Bair called Buffett “one of the smartest investors in the world.” He expects the change in ownership will bolster TW’s ability to serve the Tulsa community.
TW has a content-sharing arrangement with The Oklahoman, which was recently bought by Denver-based Anschutz Corp. |